Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park

Description

Ansel Adams
1902-1984
c. 1960s
Mural, gelatin silver print
Image Size: 53 3/4 x 47 1/2 inches
Frame Size: 54 5/8 x 48 3/4 inches
Location: Miami ~ Unique ID 537

Provenance

Purchased through Sotheby's "A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Photographs," Lot 58; Sotheby's New York, "Photographs from the Polaroid Collection," 21 June 2010, Sale 8649, Lot 420, Andrew Smith Gallery, Santa Fe, as agent.

Exhibition History

Salem, Peabody Essex Museum, Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge, June – October 2012 Greenwich, The Royal Museums Greenwich, Photography From the Mountains to the Sea, November 2012 – April 2013, and traveling thereafter to Sydney, Australian National Maritime Museum, July – December 2013

Print Notes

Adams' first foray into making mural-sized photographs came in 1935, when he was asked by his employer at the time, the Yosemite Park & Curry Company, to undertake a series of murals of Yosemite for the San Diego Exposition of that year. He became an articulate spokesman for the form, writing articles such as 'Photo-Murals' for U. S. Camera in November 1940, and discussing mural theory and practice in books such as his own The Print: Contact Printing and Enlarging of 1968. 'I was fascinated with the challenge of making a photographic print in grand scale,' Adams wrote in his autobiography. 'Many of my large-format Yosemite negatives took on a new resonance in mural-sized proportions' (Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, p. 187).